human. The receptionist was actually a robot, designed to look like a young and pretty Japanese woman. The illusion was convincing enough for Nina to have reached the desk before noticing something was amiss, but now that she knew, she found the replicant’s slightly stiff movements and glassy eyes unsettling. The robot turned towards her and spoke Japanese in a high, girly voice.
‘Uh . . . what do I do?’ she asked Kojima, who appeared amused by her discomfiture.
The robot bowed its head and spoke again, this time in a distinctly lower register. ‘My apologies, madam. I did not know you spoke English. May I take your name, please?’
‘Nina Wilde?’ Nina offered hesitantly.
The robot’s mouth pulled into a smile. ‘Thank you, you are expected. Mr Takashi is waiting for you. If you will please take your visitor’s pass, and wear it at all times while you are in the building?’ Its hand gestured towards a slot set into the marble desktop, from which emerged a laminated card bearing Nina’s name and photograph – which, she realised with unease, must have been taken just moments before by a camera in one of the robot’s eyes. She picked up the card, finding it still warm from whatever gadget had produced it, and clipped it to her jacket. ‘Please go to elevator number one,’ the simulacrum told her. ‘Have a nice day.’
Nina stepped away from the desk with haste. ‘Well, that was . . . creepy,’ she said. ‘Aren’t there any, y’know, real people who could do that?’
Kojima smiled as they crossed the lobby. ‘Takashi is a world leader in robotics. One of the best ways to test our new technology is to put it in the front line, so to speak. Also, Takashi-san only employs the best and brightest people, and believes that hiring such people for menial work would be a waste of their potential.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Nina noncommittally, wondering how Lola would react to having her job described as ‘menial’. To her mind it seemed better to provide a person with work and a wage than to spend God knew how much money building a freaky robot to do the same thing, but then, she reflected, that was probably why she wasn’t the head of a multi-billion dollar company. ‘So, before I meet Mr Takashi, is there anything I should know? I haven’t had much time to brush up on Japanese etiquette.’
They approached a bank of elevators, one of which was separated from the rest and guarded by two uniformed men – who were, to Nina’s relief, genuine human beings and not robots. ‘Don’t worry about it, Dr Wilde,’ said Kojima. ‘You are Takashi-san’s honoured guest. You would have to work very hard to offend him.’
‘I’ll try not to anyway,’ she said as they reached the guards. She expected them to check her identity, but instead a line of laser light from a sensor above the door danced briefly over a barcode on her pass. The absence of alarms and sirens satisfied the two men that she was approved to enter, and they bowed to her before moving aside.
‘This is Takashi-san’s private elevator,’ said Kojima as the doors opened and they entered. Despite the building’s height, there were only three buttons on the control panel. He pushed the topmost. ‘It only serves the parking garage, the lobby, and the penthouse. But,’ he continued as the car started to rise, accelerating quickly enough for Nina to feel it in the pit of her stomach, ‘he rarely uses it these days.’
‘So it’s true he hardly ever leaves the penthouse? Why?’
‘I wouldn’t presume to speak for Takashi-san. But I’m sure he will tell you if you ask.’
Nina was indeed curious, but she had more important questions for the reclusive industrialist. Before long, the elevator stopped. ‘Follow me, please,’ said Kojima.
The hallway of Takashi’s penthouse was decorated with pale wall panels intercut with beams of contrasting dark hardwood, the floor varnished and polished to a lacquered shine. It was austere and minimalist, yet clearly extremely expensive. Windows to one side looked out across the sunset sprawl of Tokyo, the white peak of Mount Fuji visible in the distance. ‘That’s a hell of a view,’ she said, feeling a twinge of vertigo.
They passed several doors before arriving at the end of the hall. Kojima knocked on the double oak doors there, waiting for several seconds until hearing a reply from within and opening them. With another bow, he gestured for Nina to enter.
The room beyond ran